Вики Майрон: Dewey's Nine Lives

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

ONE - Dewey and Tobi

TWO - Mr. Sir Bob Kittens (aka Ninja, aka Mr. Pumpkin Pants)

THREE - Spooky

FOUR - Tabitha, Boogie, Gail, BJ, Chimilee, Kit, Miss Gray, Maira, Midnight, ...

FIVE - Christmas Cat

SIX - Cookie

SEVEN - Marshmallow

EIGHT - Church Cat

NINE - Dewey and Rusty

Acknowledgements

Animals in Need

ALSO BY VICKI MYRON WITH BRET WITTER

Dewey

Books for Children

Dewey: There’s a Cat in the Library!

Dewey’s Christmas in the Library

Dewey the Library Cat

DUTTON

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Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First printing, October 2010

Copyright © 2010 by Vicki Myron LLC

All rights reserved

Photo credits:

Pages iii, 1, 43, 246, 301: courtesy the author; Page 17: Shutterstock; Pages 44, 68: Barbara Lajiness;

Pages 69, 100: William A. Bezanson; Pages 101, 125: Mary Nan and Larry W. Evans; Page 126: Vicki

Klueverj; Pages 165, 195: Lynda Caira; Page 196: Kristie L. Dvent; Page 223: Carol R. Riggs.

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To Glenn,

for his amazing love and support

PROLOGUE

Dewey

“Thank you, Vicki, and thank you, Dewey. . . . I don’t believe in angels, but Dewey comes close.”

—Christine B., Tampa, FL

Idisagree with the person who wrote that letter, because I do believe there are angels walking among us, helping us grow. believe in “teachable moments,” when we can learn something valuable about life if our eyes and hearts are open to the world around us. These angels of opportunity, as I like to think of them, come in all forms. They appear thanks to the important people in our lives, but also through chance meetings and strangers. I believe Dewey Readmore Books, the famous library cat of Spencer, Iowa, was one of those angels. He taught so many lessons, and touched so many lives, that I can’t dismiss it as chance. And I don’t believe in coincidence.

But I know what that young woman is saying. She is saying that Dewey, through his actions and his example, transformed her life. She can’t find the words to describe that power, but she knows it is special.

Well, I have a phrase for it: Dewey’s Magic. It is the phrase I used each time I saw his ability to change the way people thought about themselves. No one saw that Magic more than I, because of all the people in the world, I knew Dewey best and was touched by him most. I’m just an ordinary Iowa girl, the long-serving director of a small-town library less than a dozen miles from the farm where I was born and raised, but for nineteen years I was privileged to share my journey with Dewey. And Dewey . . . he was special. He impacted lives. He inspired a town. He became famous around the world, headlined magazines and newspapers, and was the subject of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Dewey , which as “Dewey’s Mommy” I was privileged to write. Dewey’s Magic, that’s what it was. He was just a cat, but he had a way of inspiring our better selves. He made everyone fall in love with him. He touched the world. No one who met him ever forgot Dewey Readmore Books.

His story began quietly, on a brutally cold weekend in January 1988. The temperature was minus fifteen degrees, the kind of cold that burns your lungs and peels the skin from your face (or at least it feels that way). That kind of cold, often accompanied by ferocious winds, is the worst thing about living in the great northern plains. You learn to tolerate it, but you never adapt. There are times in northern Iowa when it just isn’t wise to go outside.

But despite the deep freeze, someone had been out in downtown Spencer, because at some point that Sunday, a tiny homeless kitten was shoved into the book return slot on the back wall of the Spencer Public Library. I hope it was an act of mercy, that someone saw a tiny eight-week-old, one-pound kitten shivering in the snow and wanted to protect it. If that was the case, they were misguided. The library book return was nothing more than a metal tube that led, after a four-foot drop, into a sealed metal box. In effect, it was a refrigerator. There were no blankets, pads, or soft linings. There was only cold metal. And books. For at least ten hours and maybe as long as twenty-four, little Dewey sat in bitterly cold utter darkness, with nothing to comfort him but books.

I entered the story early Monday morning when I opened the book return box and found the tiny kitten inside. When he looked up longingly into my eyes, my heart stopped. He was so cute . . . and so in need. I cradled him in my hands until he stopped shivering, then gave him a warm bath in the library sink and dried him with the blow-dryer we used for children’s craft projects. That’s when Dewey took over, tottering on frostbitten feet to each person on the library staff and nuzzling them sweetly with his nose.